Man Looking for Bottles and Cans Finds Body Instead

KALAELOA (KHNL) -- A man on a recycling mission makes a gruesome discovery Tuesday morning. He finds a decomposing body in some bushes at Kalaeloa.

Honolulu police have a mystery on their hands. We're told the body may have been out there for more than a week, making identification a bit more challenging.

The remains were in the brush off Roosevelt Avenue near Barbers Point Elementary. That's a couple of miles from the Kalaeloa Airport in Leeward Oahu.

At about 9:45 in the morning, a man looking for bottles and cans stumbles upon the fully-clothed body and notifies military police. They, in turn, contact HPD. Investigators say it appears to be a male's body.

"The body appears to have been there about maybe a week or two. It's in the initial stages of decomposition," Sgt. Steven Kitsu, Honolulu Police Department, said. "Right now, we don't have any foul play. We didn't find any signs of foul play. We don't have any ID. We don't know who it is."

The Medical Examiner's office will determine how the person died. For now, the case is classified as an unattended death.

Again, police believe it's a man's body. That means the search for Masumi Watanabe of Japan, who went missing in Pupukea nearly two weeks ago, continues.